Cross-contextual diversity in children’s early understanding of visual media

When and how do children come to understand various kinds of visual media (e.g., pictures,videos, scale models), and how does early experience contribute to variation in the developmentof these symbolic behaviors across global contexts? Researchers have investigated how childrenfrom Western convenience samples understand visual media, but less is known about how thiscomprehension varies across children in diverse global contexts. Indeed, prior work investigatingpicture comprehension suggests that children in different contexts may understand pictures atdifferent developmental timepoints, potentially due to variation in their early picture experiences.These findings demonstrate the need for more research investigating consistency or diversity inchildren’s comprehension of additional kinds of visual media across contexts. Theexperience-dependence of visual media comprehension could provide important insight intothese abilities’ origins, as well as the appropriateness of cross-cultural use of visual media inearly childhood measurement.